Stephan:   Here is the worse case scenario, and it is terminally bleak. Worse, I am seeing scientists advance variations on this theme with increasingly regularity. Through ignorance, much of it willful, stupidity, and greed we  cannot as a civilization seem to get to the critical consensus necessary to create change. Look at Oklahoma. In the face of an increased earthquakes by orders of magnitude, and increasingly frequent and violent tornadoes, both provably the result of human activity, the people of Oklahoma continue to vote into office climate change deniers, beginning with Republican Senator and science denier James Inhofe.